The DJC wrote about plans by the Portland Development Commission to rehabilitate* the long vacant Old Fire Station Property in Old Town Chinatown.

According to the Oregonian the 111-year old Chamberlain Hotel building, formerly home to Shleifer Furniture, will house a temporary homeless shelter while plans progress for its renovation into a hotel.

Conceptual diagram showing how much development would be allowed under a full site redevelopment of the Centennial Mills site (image: GBD Architects). The flour mill would remain and be converted to creative office space, while the rest of the site would likely be used for residential and retail uses, plus an expansion of the Willamette Greenway.

The Willamette Week reported that Portland could be getting a major new music venue at 2034 NW 27th Ave. With a capacity for 3,000 concert goers it would be of a similar size to the Schnitzer Concert Hall or the Keller Auditorium.

Type III Design Review for a new 280 unit, 16-story building with market rate residential units and ground floor retail. The new building will be “L-shaped” around the Touche Restaurant Building. Underground parking, 222 spaces, will serve the project. This proposal will replace the recently discussed demolition of the Touche Bldg and construction of a 12-story residential building (EA 16-138068) and will replace the recently approved Design Review of the “Meriwether 501” building (LU 15-187119 DZM, AD).

Mackenzie have submitted a project at 700 SE Belmont St for building permit review:

The Portland Business Journal wrote about the 64 apartments coming to a “long-dormant corner of Southeast Portland”. The Lennox Apartments at 4455 SE 52nd Ave will also include 3,500 sq ft of ground floor retail space, which will be outfitted for a restaurant.

Portland Architecture covered a talk given by Lever Architecture’s Thomas Robinson about Framework. The 12 story will be constructed of Cross Laminated Timber, which it make it the tallest mass timber building in the USA.

Oregon Business reported that winners of a recent Cross Laminated Timber contest included Framework and Carbon12.

According to The Oregonian, Natural Grocers won’t open at NE Alberta & MLK until February 2018—almost a full year later than expected.

The Boys & Girls Club in Westmoreland has been sold, according to the Portland Business Journal. The building at 7119 SE Milwaukie Ave will be replaced with a new mixed use development.

Plans are moving forward for an office and hotel development in downtown, according to the Portland Business Journal. The projects at 3rd and Taylor and 3rd and Salmonrespectively will bring 175,000 sq ft of office space and 20 story hotel to Downtown Portland. Demolition permits have now been filed for the Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple and the Hotel Albion.

The first vendors at the Pine Street Marketopened yesterday, including Pollo Bravo and Trifecta Annex. Early in the week The Oregonian published photos of the nearly completed food hall.

The Portland Business Journal reported that Guerrilla Development has received authorization from the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $1.5 million in funding for the Fair Haired Dumbbellthrough a crowd sourced offering. Construction of the building is expected to begin in May.

Pearl West by Hacker / GBD Architects, the first new office building to break ground in the Central City after the recession

While Portland has long been considered a desirable place to live, it has traditionally lagged its suburbs—Washington County particulary—in income and job growth. Following the recession this appears to have changed. Employers increasingly desire a location in central Portland. As commercial vacancy rates have dropped and rental rates gone up there has been a sudden influx of new office proposals.

The vast majority of these are speculative projects, where the developer starts work on the project without a specific tenant in mind. Only three of the buildings—the Daimler Trucks North America HQ, the Multnomah County Health Department HQ and the Seven Corners Community Collaborative—are planned for a specific end user.

Click through to see our roundup of the major projects going on right now, arranged in no specific order. Where a significant portion of the building will be used for functions other than office, the area of the office floors alone has been given. Note that the area of any building may not be directly comparable to another due to differences in methods for how floor area is calculated.

Every week, the Bureau of Development Services publishes lists of Early Assistance applications, Land Use Reviews and Building Permits. We publish the highlights. (Note – this post covers the week of December 14th to 20th.)

Pre-Application Conference to discuss a Type III Historic Resource Review for a new 4-story, mixed-use creative office building addition to the New Market Theater Historic Building. The New Market Theatre is a designated Historic Landmark, within the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District. The applicant has submitted 3 different possible fascades that illustrate the design options being considered.